aláwọ

Rawhide, dried sheep or goat skin, was used for medieval bookmaking and the storage of knowledge before paper was introduced to Europe. Often it is also called parchment or vellum. Usually, an abstract rectangular sheet would be cut out of the animal’s skin.

Moussa Kone had drawn on parchment several times before and decided to keep the silhouette of the animal complete in this series. One can see the neck, the back, the feet, and still imagine the living being inside the skin. “In this shape the medium preserves its past, and more of its value - life”, says Kone.

Ink changes its appearance when used on its original medium and becomes glossy and shiny, much like lacquer. Moussa Kone uses the texture of the skin, with its pores and scars, for this series of drawings of mostly self portraits.

After the process of drawing was finished, the skin was watered and mounted with nails on canvas stretched over a wooden board to get a plane surface. Like in a drumhead mounting technique, the drying process tensions and tightens the skin. Moussa Kone considers this inherent tension an important part of the work itself. Rawhide easily absorbs humidity from the air and warps and curls, unless it is kept under constant tension. During the watering process textile structures and crinkles develop in the areas covered with black ink.

The title you look like you are drawn by an artist is a quote from a Spanish-English Dominican-American bachata pop song. There it is used as a compliment to an adored person. The use of this preposition lets the sentence reflect a sphere of bilingualism, to which Kone adds another view. He interprets “drawn by” also in the sense of “become attracted to” and talks directly to the spectator of the artwork - or is it the work itself, that talks to the future art collector?

In installations, Kone combined the drawings on rawhide with small objects quoting their animal origin. In the work ọsẹ dúdú (scapegoat) it is a black soap in the form of a young billy goat’s horn, lying on a cast of an alpine trophy board made from ceramics. Soap, the “fat solvent made from fat” has a “magical cleaning power” (Kone) through this reverse chemical process and points into the direction of the skin and cleaning procedures.

The hammer made with ram horns is mounted on a panic snap, a tool used e.g. in horse-training. A panic snap can be opened and released even in the case that it is put under extreme tension. The hammer is hung next to the drawing showing the artist quietly sleeping, entitled pan/nap. The peaceful atmosphere around the artist might be a precarious state. When the Greek Pan was accidentally awakened, he created fear beyond logical thinking. The aláwọ series through the animal silhouettes poetically references states of human condition.